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Haigler

Dundy County

The spot where Nebraska corners on Kansas and Colorado.

Balloons go up to dedicate the park on Potter Avenue on Haigler Day, April 30, 1987.

Flagpole at Porter and Nebraska Avenue (Hwy 34) in early 1900s

Load of lumber 1903

Haigler, Nebraska 1925

State Bank ca.1915, W.H. Larned, Cashier.

Eighty persons from Tri-State area at Three Corners for opening observance of centennial.

Whether traveling north on Highway 27 from Kansas or east on Highway 34 from Colorado,
the first town in Nebraska is Haigler, population 230. It is the state's
"cornerstone."

A cafe on the corner of Porter and Nebraska Avenue welcomes you. The grocery store on
the opposite corner is always a busy place. Turn north onto Porter Avenue and you see the
little park with a gazebo and a wooden sculpture of Uncle Jimmy Gray, the first white man
who lived in the area. The placard says that he came here in about 1869 after serving in
the New York Cavalry in the Civil War.

Across the street, the flag is waving in front of the post office, now located in the
old Drovers' and Traders' Bank building. The American Legion Hall is next door with
another sculpture -- an old cowboy carrying his saddle -- representing the hundreds of
cattlemen and farmers who settled the area.

On the
corner of that busy block you see a recreation hall. Across the street is the Co-op and
its large grain elevators, a butchering plant and locker. You make a U-turn to get back on
the highway and get gasoline at the town's only filling station. If something is wrong
with your car, there's a mechanic at the garage next door who will take care of it for
you.

The Golden Inn community center is on Noble Street. A block to the west puts you on
King Avenue and you see Zion Lutheran and United Methodist churches.

The school
and gymnasium are on Norman Street and Logan Avenue. Your tour shows you a tennis court, a
ball field, some well-kept yards and homes, and the town park.

Now, my friend, you have seen our town of Haigler.

But wait. You don't know that the townsite was the homestead of James and Arabelle
Porter, the first family to settle here. They built a mercantile store while other pioneer
families came to take up ranching, farming, teaching, construction, and printing. The town
had store keepers, doctors, lawyers, school teachers, bar tenders, and cattle rustlers,
too. Haigler had every type.

The Burlington Railroad extended its lines from Indianola to Denver in 1881-82. The
mail was dispatched at Jake Haigler's ranch house two miles west, so the railroad called
it "Haigler's" station. Jake's office was equipped with four soap boxes marked
NE, NW, SE, and SW. Any rider who came along would take all the mail in the box for his
vicinity, and distribute it as he went along.

It was five
years later that the Lincoln Land Company bought the Porter homestead for $4,000 and
platted a town. The first newspaper was printed that same year, 1886. The last paper came
out in 1955.

A two-story wooden building was erected in 1887 for a schoolhouse. Replaced by a brick
building in 1914, it has been remodeled several times and is still in use today. A
gymnasium was added in 1936. K-6 students are taught in Haigler, but as of 1986, the
junior and senior high students attend the Dundy County School in Benkelman.

Haigler had
two banks which closed with the stock market crash in 1929. The peak population was 533 in
1930.

The Methodist Church, organized in 1888, built and dedicated a church in 1889. As the
only church in town for many years, it was the community meeting place, and other
congregations also used it for worship services. The Lutheran Church was organized in 1910
and built a church in 1949.

A sale pavilion was built in the early 1900s. Huge cattle sales were conducted there.
It was razed in the mid 1930s, after the railroad moved its line further north.

Circle
irrigation has made a great change in the Haigler area. Much of the sandhill grass land to
the north has been planted to corn, alfalfa, wheat, soybeans, sunflowers. Adjoining farm
land in Kansas, which has always been a part of Haigler's community, has also benefited
from circle irrigation. It means, however, that there are bigger farms, fewer people, and
as result, a smaller town.

On the first weekend in August 1986, one thousand people gathered for a weekend school
reunion, barbecue, street dance, and community church service in the park in observance of
Haigler's centennial.